If so, I'd like to buy 1,000 shares in Platinum II off of Northwest Highway. Why Platinum II? Well, let's just say that based on a visit a few weeks ago, it's the type of place the man above (not Mike Tenay) will probably be visiting.

I've been staring at this black screen trying to come up with something to write, but I just don't know if i have it in me. I love the Dallas Mavericks. I have since I was a wee little boy. When Starter pullover jackets where the shit, and it must be noted that I lived in a town north of Austin, Everybody had one. There were plenty of Cowboys, Lakers, Rockets, Yankee's, and Red Wings ones, but I had a Dallas Stars, and a Dallas Mavericks. While my love for hockey has faded quite a bit as I have grown, my love for the Mav's have always been there.

We didn't get alot of Mav's basketball where I grew up. Mostly because they sucked, and FoxSports Southwest wasn't quite running yet. But I still followed them in the paper with box scores, played as the Mav's when I played NBA Live and NBA Jam. I loved me some triple J's, and truly thought that was the beginning of a dynasty. One of the better surprises when I came up here for college was the ability to watch EVERY SINGLE Mav's game on TV. It was great. Watching Calvin Booth put that offensive rebound back in to beat Utah in the first round of the playoffs was the single most excited I have ever been watching a sport at the time, and now it's still in my top 10.

When the Mav's got good, and I became an alcoholic Drinker, I watched the Mav's and Spurs series at my bar with friends of both teams, and that was some of my fondest memories of college.

It's all those things that make me hate what I see when I turn on the Mav's right now. It's not that their losing, I can take that. Its that it just doesn't seem to matter to them anymore. They play scared, they shoot too many jump shots for fear of getting hurt in the lane, they don't look like they are even trying to get rebounds.

Its like if you thought your boss was the perfect man. He could do no wrong. He didn't always win the battles he fought, but damnit he did his best and he made you proud to be a part of his company. Then one day, corporate comes in and tells your boss that he has to fire his best employee. Without as much as a "why?" he just does it. You lose all respect for your boss then right?

This is what the Mavericks have done to me. I have put so much faith in them over the years to have them put up sorry ass games like they have over the past few years. Where you at, Jason Kidd? Where you at, Josh Howard? Is your pride not hurt? Are you so scared of failing that you don't even want to TRY anymore?

I'm not saying that everybody on this team is awfull, they just don't have any heart. Dirk's play over the past 3 months has been fantastic, but I think this team stopped looking to him after last years series vs the Warriors. The front office thought maybe Jason Kidd would bring heart, but that hasn't worked. I don't know what it will take, but something has to change.

So look down Mav's, see that you still have a pair. I don't give a damn if you lose, just go down swinging.

Looks like something very bad happened yesterday. A Bear killed his trainer. This bear, Rocky, was the one from Semi-Pro with Will Ferrell. Ferrell "wrestled" the bear in the movie for a publicity stunt. I contacted our very own Bear for a comment and this is what he said.

This is an election year, lots of debate has gone on. The GOP has picked their man and the Democrats are locked between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. What better way to get more Americans to vote than to show up on RAW. McCain, Clinton, and Obama had recorded messages (I wanted to say pre-recorded but I think that is redundant). Hillary's was boring, Barack's highlight was the line "Do you smell what Barack is cooking", and McCain just threw phrases left and right. He used "To be the man, you gotta beat the man", "whatcha gonna when the McCainiacs run wild on you", and "Game over". They there was a match between a fake Hillary and fake Obama. No, it was not Molly Holly and 2 Cold Scorpio/Flash Funk.

Big gave me the idea to create a list (because people love lists) of Presidents who would have also been good performers in the world of sports entertainment.

5. Ronald Reagan.

Coming from a background in acting he fits in perfectly with wrestling. He even has his own valet in Nancy Reagan. They come to the ring with the classic good guy gimmick of saying no to drugs, saying your prayers, and poor people are bad. Double R could spin this into being a face or a heel, kind of a more friendly JBL.

4. Grover Cleveland.

Back-to-back champion. Oh wait, someone else well get the title and then he'll get it back. Kind of like winning the PPV and then losing it on RAW only to get it back at Saturday Nights Main Event.

Took a break while working on this, watched some ECW. I miss Joey Styles, Mike Adamle is horrible. When Taz is doing your play-by-play you're in trouble. Another observation- I would watch a Kofi Kingston/Shelton Benjamin match every week. Those two are incredible.

3. JFK.

He is the Ric Flair of the Presidents. He had his posse that acted as the interchangable Four Horseman. He was stylin' and profilin' and bangin' celebrities.

Side note. The Presidential Four Horseman would've been:JFKLBJRFKArthur Goldberg

2. LBJ.

After stepping out of the shadow of JFK and going on his own LBJ's no nonsense country boy attitude puts him in the Stone Cold persona. He was the second tallest president at 6'3" and he was country big. He's taking names and giving great quotes. Can you picture LBJ 6:35 signs in the crowd at his innaguration? How about a stunner to Castro and the rest of Commies.

1. "Honest" Abe Lincoln.

At 6'4" and his good guy image he's the perfect face for America to get behind. He also had an extensive wrestling career in real life (Credit to "The Unreal Story of Professional Wrestling" on A&E). He had some 300 matches before getting too busy with running a country and freeing slaves. He's wiry, too. I envision him in the ring performing kind of like Orton or Edge.

There you have it folks. Your undisputed Presidential Wrestling Alliance Champion- Abraham Lincoln. We re-visit the rankings as we get closer to election time.

We here at the big and the brown like to think of all sports, real and not real. We are both fans of soccer or "football," but we really only follow it when it gets really good. Sir Arthur Chillumsworth Esq the Third is back, and he's talkin' futball. All questions can be sent to our email, if you want to ask Art any questions. (try and read with a british accent, makes it more enjoyable)

Wednesday, April 23rd, in the year of our lord, 2008; The Manchester United Football club will face off against the slick latin squad, Barcelona F.C. This indeed will be a match to remember, both teams are clamoring for the top spot in their domestic leagues and both clubs have been reserving themselves for this Champions League clash at the camp nou.

If you have ESPN2 and perhaps a DVR? You should reserve a little space for this game, grab a few beers and see what all the fuss is about. Trust me, I watch a lot of football from all over the world, these two teams are almost mirror images of each other, with very deep squads. High level teams tend to play up to the level of their opponent, and this tournament stands to gain each team a ton of prestige and money. For Manchester United rests the ability to continue their claim as one of the best squads in history, for Barcelona (hardly an underdog, mind you) to shut everyone up about it.

Just to give you more context to this game; the Champions League tournament is a separate competition consisting of the top teams from domestic leagues around Europe. Best of the best. Imagine the Dallas Mavs facing off with Detroit one night and then playing Boca Juniors later in the week for some sort of badass trophy. But the tourney goes on for weeks during your regular season play. These kinds of competitions really test the players and managers alike. To compensate, the UCL is one of the most lucrative contests, consider this; teams receive a 3 million euro bonus to start, teams receive a bonus no matter the result, win lose or draw at every level up to the finals. 7 million to the winners, that's about $14 million american dollars give or take, not a bad haul.

Now, I am a semi UFC/MMA fan. I like to watch it and I know a little bit about what goes down. I now have a new favorite fighter, Nate Quarry. He fought some douche bag guy from Canada named Starnes at last weeks UCF 83. Here is a tribute video to Starnes who just runs away. Why is Quarry my fav? Watch until the end and you will find out.

Just like Rocky ended the cold war, I think we can now all get along with Canada.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Maybe we all need to tap the breaks a second. Going into this year, the expectations for the Mav's were high. I mean come on, 2 years ago they should have the NBA championship, and last year they won 67 games and were the number one seed in the west. We should expect a good year from this team, right?

That's not really what we got. All year long, Dallas played like a pretty good, but not great team. With hot spurts where they could beat anybody, and low times where the average teams in the NBA gave us trouble.

So what if that's what we really are? A good, but not great team? We have a superstar in Dirk. We have a great court general in Kidd. After that? ehhhhh.

Josh Howard was going to be this teams number 2 guy, but while in role for over 2 years now, he has steady gotten more and more mentally unstable to handle it. Josh Howard is at his best when he isn't expected to do anything on the offensive side of the ball. When he can just move through traffic, get an open look here and there, and grab rebounds. Running an ISO for him on the wing takes hims out of that role as "disruptor."

Jason Terry is "tweener." Who isn't big enough to play the 2, but doesn't have the ball handling skills to play the point for 40 min.

And then, there is Jerry Stackhouse. He was the balls of this team when we made our run to the finals a few short years ago. He was one of the only players who had no problem taking it to the rim and getting fouled. Now? His age and constant injury's have slowed him to a point to where now he can only give you a good game one out of five.

Damp, Bass, and Lou all have roles on this team that they fill well. But as for everybody else? Garbage. So this is your team.

PG - Kidd, great general, needs people to move around him to be at his best.SG - Jason Terry, Undersized, can't play defense against bigger guards, is a streak shooterSF - Josh Howard, 2nd best player on the team that needs a role where he is 3rd or 4th.PF - Dirk, nothing is wrong with him at all.C - Damp, when not in foul trouble, is a solid center who plays a decent role. Bench - Bass, great energy smallish big guyLou - Nice back up pointStack - One out of five games, when he is hot, you can count a good game. Other than that, not very good at all.Edddie Jones - Old and sucks.Juan Howard - Old and sucks.Devon George - If he played 5 min a game, might be worth it, but 25? old and sucksJJ - young and sucksMalik Allen - average bigAntoine Wright - young, raw.Coach - Avery Johnson. Thought it was a good idea to play, at one point in the first game, Juan Howard, Devon George, and Eddie Jones at the same time. His style of coaching, both how he leads and the plays he calls, don't match this team at all.

That's our team. That's all they are. A good, but not great team. Its no surprise that they are a 7 seed. It shouldn't be a surprise that a 2 seed beat us. Now can we get hot for a couple of game and win? You bet your sweet ass. When we get hot, and shots fall for dirk and terry and howard, and J-Kidd can run the fast break, and Damp keeps his head in the game, we can beat ANYBODY. But what makes a team great isn't how you play when you get hot, its how you play when your cold. And this team is TERRIBLE when they are cold.

As we here at the Big and the Brown love all things sports, fake or real, we know that we don't have all the knowledge of some of our peers. We gladly move aside when someone who is an expert in a certain field wants to put his/her two cents in. With that said, here is what should be a "weekly" post about wrestling from our wrestling guru.

By the way. He's mad at you, and just like his 80's hero's twisted sister, He's not going to take it.

Well folks. We apparently have to uphold some sort of standard, and fit into a niche in blogging. We can't try to be too funny, and we have to try and be sportsy. My apologies to the critics. To make up for it I will do a fantasy season for the Rangers, game by game. Much like Big did when the Cowboys season came out or when Norm does a fantasy call of kids racing at the park.

Not really, I don't care what people say, it does kind of suck when half the people who read the blog are unhappy.

Before I get into the squared-circle, I would like to point out to the Mavs fans that DJ Moose MBenga Click Click will probably get a ring before Dirk or Jet. He will have done nothing to earn it other than sit at the end of the bench with Chris Mihm (hey what's up, Brown?), but it's a nice bench to sit on. Just let The Mamba, The Spanard, and Bill Walton's kid do the work and next thing you know you're a champ.

Ok, wrestling. Couple of quick hits.

Good Ol' JR wrote in his blog about Mike Adamle being brought in to take his place eventually. Adamle has already started doing ECW. He's no good. I hope WWE doesn't give any thought to it. USA and NBC are a part of Universal, send Adamle back to American Gladiators and put Hogan back in the WWE in some fashion. Make things right with the world.

He is coming back. He is facing Orlando Jordan (JBL's washed up sidekick when JBL was working) on June 25th in Germany. He will be bringing all the spirits and forces needed to get him the victory. He will call on the power of all the little warriors. That's right Ultimate Warrior is back. He's doing a show in Europe for a company over there. Apparently not many people were interested in motivational speaking from Jim Hellwig.

Here's a little list I've compiled of guys that you probably were not wondering about, but I can confirm they are not dead. My extensive research of Lucha de Vuelte and AAA on the spanish channels has proven these guys still exist.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

So, if you haven't guessed as much from some of my past ramblings, I tend to travel a lot for work. I'd like to think I work in airports and hotel rooms the same way Picasso worked in his studio.

Normally, my trips are a single week and I immerse myself in local grub or fast food type eateries.

However, when I'm on a particularly long stretch, I will drive to the local grocery store and pick up some basic items to eat in the room, mostly breakfasty in nature with the snack food thrown in as well. One of these staples is a pack of bagels and regular cream cheese.

(Be patient, dick nose, I'm getting to the point of this post.)

I'm not sure when it happened, but somehow the cream cheese revolution occurred and no one told me. Gone are the days where you can confidently pick up a container of "Philadelphia REGULAR Cream Cheese" Oh no, now you've got "Regular Strawberry" versus "Low Fat Strawberry" or "Honey Nut" or other fruitful flavors that are often just trying to mimick the mixture of cream cheese and jelly/jam.

Fine, I get it. Me personally? I'm a fan of the plain old cream cheese. So when I see a container that says "REGULAR" and, at first glance, has no distinct color pattern to suggest otherwise, I throw it in the cart, pay and go home.

Upon unpacking my groceries, imagine my surprise when seeing this:

That's right: SALMON FLAVORED CREAM CHEESE.

I don't know how to photoshop, so trust me, that's the real deal.

If you're curious, it's the grossest tasting shit you can imagine. It's like spreading bacon fat on a blueberry bagel...only not as tasty as that might sound.

And before you ass holes say it, that's like the second time I've ever used my digital camera. I was a business major, not a fucking photographer.